


The Inevitable Demise of Sex and Mockery

by jturner36



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:45:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jturner36/pseuds/jturner36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Meredith find that sex and mockery has its limits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inevitable Demise of Sex and Mockery

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. References to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

_ No, not love she said. Don't you know that it's different for girls? _

 

 

There was a distinctive scent in the air near his land that Derek loved. It was something that he couldn't quite identify, but that pleased him nonetheless: spicy, rich, and intoxicating. Perhaps it was the combination of pine and earth, or the potpourri of moss, grass, leaves and sap, but he loved to be outdoors where he could fill his senses with the calm and beauty he had come to crave since he'd moved to Seattle.

It was relatively dark outside, but he could easily walk the path from his trailer to the water with his eyes closed if he had to; darkness was no obstacle. The birds weren't active yet, and the tree frogs had long since given up their hope of finding a mate for the night, so the only thing audible was the thud of his steps in the soft, wet grass.

He arrived at his favorite spot and opened his tackle box, looking with satisfaction at the way he'd organized it a few nights ago when sleep had also eluded him. Spools of line, his spinners, spoons, jigs, and plugs were housed in separate compartments on the bottom. The foldout trays had space for his power bait, worms, eggs, leaders, soft baits, scents, bobbers and sinkers. It was arranged logically, neatly, and efficiently, the way his life used to be arranged before he witnessed the unimaginable, came to Seattle and fell in love with a woman who wouldn't permit herself to love him in return.

He worked methodically and precisely, taking the time of year, the water conditions, and the weather into account as he prepared his rod and reel. It was not unlike surgery, he thought idly to himself, where the right tools in the right hands under the right conditions brought success. "Hmm, fishing is like surgery," he said quietly to himself. "Fucking ridiculous." Sighing, he set to the task of casting, hoping the whoosh of his line, the quiet splash, and the satisfying clicks of his reel would clear his mind of the hurt and frustration that dogged him.  
  
The day had started on what most men would consider a great note. He had met Meredith in an on-call room on the fourth floor and they'd had, after a four-day hiatus where they were inexplicably unable to synchronize their schedules, what she'd labeled and he'd tacitly agreed was "unbelievably amazing sex." And then the day unraveled in spectacular fashion.

**

"Hmm," she purred, stretching with sated satisfaction. "I win."

Derek giggled quietly. "You win?"

"Uh huh," she grinned, lifting an eyebrow. "Meredith two, Derek one."

"Well...technically," he explained, "that means I win. If you look at it analytically, I made you come twice; you only made me come once." 

"But I don't look at it that way. So, I win." She turned, smiling, to see Derek smiling back at her and his eyes glimmered with the look that she concurrently loved and feared. The look. Their look.

Shit, she thought as her smile faded. Here it comes; danger concealed in a whisper. 

"Meredith, I love...."

She jumped out of bed. "No."

He stood up as well, his frustration evident. "I'm in love with you," he declared.

"No!" she barked.

He held her arm, wanting her attention, desperate to make his point. "Meredith."

"Don't," she insisted, pulling out of his grasp. "You know our rules."

"Your rules," he scoffed as he grabbed his clothing.

Meredith turned away from him and put her scrub pants on, tying them swiftly before wriggling into shoes. "Our rules, Derek. We agreed. There's no love. I don't do love."

"You 'don't do love.' What does that even mean, Meredith?" 

She faced him, unyielding. "If you want love, go find love. If you want someone who wants to talk, who wants dinner and conversation and handholding, whatever...go find her. Go date."

"Date?" Derek was astonished, wondered if he had been drop kicked into an alien land. What the hell was happening?

"Yes, date. Because this? You and me? This is just sex. Just fucking." 

Stunned, he flinched visibly. "Fucking?

It was her scalpel to his heart, she knew; slicing to pieces what he'd once given her to safeguard, hold, and heal. She raised her eyes to meet him, undeterred and resolute, standing her ground.

Derek shook his head in disbelief. "That's what this is to you? Fucking?" He waited for an answer, but she disregarded him and reached for her shirt. "This isn't just sex," he insisted. "And it isn't just fucking. We don't fuck and you know it."

She was doggedly determined not to feel badly about this. Her irritation - frustration with herself, really - burst forth, and that frustration would run roughshod over his distress. "We fuck, Derek," she stated as she drew her scrub top over her head. "That's what it is. There is no happily ever after, there is no fairytale. We fuck here at the hospital, fuck at your trailer, fuck at my house. You fuck me and I fuck you like with any other...."

There it was, the final slice. As soon as she said it, she fell silent. She was ashamed to see the effect those words had on him. The hurt - incredulity - in his eyes was too much for her to bear. Mission accomplished, Meredith, she thought. She couldn't look anymore, couldn't look, and so she slipped out of the room into the bright, harsh lights of the hospital. 

 **

Meredith had spent the day pretending not to see him in the hallway, pretending not to hear his voice, putting on her best doctor face and reminding herself that she'd done nothing more than adhere to the sensible rules of sex and mockery. She made rounds, she assisted in two surgeries, and she ate with her friends as she always did. After her shift was over, she went out to Joe's as usual, and was still convinced that she'd done no wrong.

Except at Joe's, Derek wasn't there and when two different men tried to strike up a conversation and hit on her, guilt crept over her and settled into her bones, making her feel sad and empty. 

The drive to his place was automatic, and she was relieved to arrive and see the soft glow of the lights of his trailer in the woods. He must have seen her headlights, or at least heard the car engine, but he didn't step out to greet her. 

 

Meredith shut the car door and climbed the steps, peering into a window for a glimpse of him, but saw nothing. She didn't knock, although for a split second after she opened the door, she wondered if she should have, since he's now, with her blessing, potentially dating.

Derek was in bed alone, though, reading. 

She took a few steps in his direction, but he didn't look up or in any way acknowledge her presence. Something inside his trailer smelled delicious - a creamy, subtle and wonderful aroma lingering from what must have been Derek's creation in the kitchen. Her stomach rumbled audibly, and even from his bed, he heard it.

"There are leftovers in the fridge; help yourself if you're hungry."

"No," she answered, not wanting to break their - her - rule of not eating together. Stupid rule, she realized, since she was starving, but there would be no way to save face if she blatantly disregarded her edict. Like a do-over in a child's game, it wouldn't be quite fair. "I'm fine."

"Hmm," he responded, seemingly entranced by the book in his hands.

"What are you reading?" she asked as she moved toward the bed.

"Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson."

When she started to disrobe, his attention shifted and he watched, his eyes betraying his feigned indifference and otherwise cool demeanor. Meredith stood at the foot of his bed, naked, and stroked her body lightly. Derek took a deep breath and put his book aside. He studied her face for a moment, then watched as her hands moved to all the places he knew to touch. She crept into bed, finally, sighing as his arms enfolded her.  Meredith lay with him, luxuriating in the feel and smell of him, and reached down to stroke his length. He was already aroused, hard and hot.

"So," he murmured, making eye contact with her, "you want me to be like any other guy you'd meet." He wasn't asking or accusing; he was stating it, admitting defeat. "Then look at me and tell me - to my face - you're not in love with me. Tell me and I'll believe you." And that was his punch to her gut.

 Meredith averted her eyes. "I can't do this. I can't. Don't make me h-hurt...I...I'm saying...this is how you can have me, Derek."

He nodded, resigned. "Then I'll have you." He rolled over, settling between her legs and pushed forward, filling her. As Meredith attempted to process what he was doing - sex without significant foreplay was not his style - she was acutely aware that everything about him was distorted, different. He wasn't rough, he didn't hurt her, but he was robotic, remote.  

As she'd decreed, there was no talk of love, but more than his words were missing; there was no gentle sweep of his fingers, no tender lips nuzzling her neck, no quiet moans or sighs. Just Derek, thrusting into her mechanically, emotionally disconnected. Distant and quiet, he grasped her shoulders from underneath and shifted her, pulling her body into his, then anchored himself with his arms flexed on the space at the head of his bed. It was as if she, Meredith herself, weren't there. As if she were unimportant, nothing.

Meredith was disturbed by his dispassionate demeanor, and so she tried to mollify him with her hands, stroking him tenderly in a futile attempt to reach him, to cope with the damage she'd caused.  
  
"Derek?"  
  
He didn't open his eyes, reach down to kiss her or stop. He grunted softly, increasing his pace vigorously, and his relentless, impassive intensity became too much for her heart to bear. Tears eased out of her eyes.  
  
"Derek, please," she implored.  
  
He moved deeper, spreading her legs wider, his cock swelling as it did right before he climaxed and she whimpered.  His body, his magnificent, glorious, beautiful, male body, which even in his most primal, raw moments was always used with care and adoration, had become a foreign, coarse, strange entity. 

And if his aim was to prove to her that he didn't care at all, that he, too, could fuck her like so many men had before, he'd succeeded. If this was his revenge, she felt it on every inch of her skin.  


"Derek, no!" she cried. "Please stop!"

 He did. Immediately. Derek withdrew, stealing a furtive glance at her, looking humiliated and on the verge of tears.

She rolled her onto her side, away from him, and wept. Derek followed her, held her, then kissed up her shoulder, his fingers trailing behind as gentle as the mist that hovered over his lake and in the dips and valleys of his land. Pulling her hair to one side, he kissed her cheek, then pressed his nose to her neck, inhaling. "I'm sorry," he whispered into the tears that had crept there. "I know I can't.... I won't say it. I won't say it anymore. I would never...I'm sorry."

"Derek...." She was rendered silent by his mouth on hers as he swallowed her protest. He kissed her ardently at first, and then slowly, slowly he became more tentative, gentle and sweet.  Meredith eased onto her back, and he kissed her face, her neck, and then her breasts.

"I love your breasts," he began quietly as he pulled each wrinkled peak into his mouth in turn. "The curve from just underneath up to your nipples is maybe my favorite part. I love your arms, when they're wrapped around me. It makes me feel so happy when you hold me."

"Don't!" she pleaded, feeling she could not endure this final stage of her punishment, which in its tenderness would be the most excruciating of all. "Don't do this."

"Shh, shh, it's okay. It's okay," he soothed her. "Lay back, let go. Let me." Derek made his way from her breasts downward, and stopped between her legs. "This? Here?" He parted her and kissed. "You're exquisite, perfect." 

She moaned, surrendering to his mouth and his fingers, which had begun doing delicious and indescribable things to her.

"I love your body" he continued, "the way you act when you're aroused. You look so beautiful when I'm making love to you."

"God, Derek, god...." she crooned quietly, pulling him in, wanting him. Meredith looked drugged; eyes half closed, her body supple, melding perfectly into him.

"I love being inside of you, the way you feel - wet and soft for me. Just for me."

He moved slowly, in and out, savoring her the only way he could as her hips matched to his rhythm. He buried his head into her neck and planted a soft line of kisses from her collarbone to her ear before easing back up.

She couldn't look, but she knew innately what she would have seen: Derek, above her, loving her, his eyes filled with his heart.

It began slowly, building from deep inside her core, and he felt it, he knew it was there, an ember, a glow, there waiting for him to ignite it. He knew her.

"Come, Meredith," he whispered, and she did, bucking and gasping, shuddering as each tremor rendered her senseless.

He smoothed the hair back from her face, waiting for her to look at him. Finally, after a minute or so, she did. 

"With other men - was it like this?" he asked softly.

"No," she admitted, her voice breaking.

He nodded, then carefully extracted himself from her warmth, her body, and the luscious tangle of her limbs and got out of bed.

"What are you doing?"  
  
Derek pulled his jeans on, buttoned them swiftly, and then grabbed his shirt from the floor and jerked it over his head. "I'm going fishing."  
  
Meredith sat up, clutching his bed sheet to her chest, hopeful that a vestige of his warmth was still contained within them. "It's...it's the middle of the night, Derek."

"It's early in the morning," he corrected her. "Be careful driving home, it's foggy," he added as he reached for the door.

"Derek, come back. You didn't finish. I...."

"You insult me," he interrupted, turning around to face her, and she drew back as though he'd struck her. "You insult me with your insistence that we just fuck. And if that's what I am to you, if that's what this is, I...."

"You don't want me," she insisted, attempting to revise what she knew to be the truth.

"You're wrong, Meredith. I do want you. But not like this." He smiled regretfully. "Meredith one, Derek zero. You win," he said and then crossed the threshold into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I am guilty of self-plagarization, having stolen a short scenario and several reworked phrases from a fanfic I wrote 15 (!) years ago. Evidently, I liked it enough to recycle it.
> 
> The best part of writing for me is the slow build; the idea formulates and begins to take shape. The idea for this story, aside from dealing with S&M, was the line that popped into my head, "With other men - was it like this?" When words flow from your brain through your fingers onto the "paper," it's just a framework that needs to be tweaked and reshaped until it pleases you. Changing a word here, adding a detail there, cutting and pasting is incredibly satisfying.
> 
> Thanks to anyone and everyone who reads my work. I'm very grateful when you do.


End file.
